H-1 Freeway rehab just one of several overnight road closures this week

The State Department of Transportation has scheduled full lane closures in the eastbound lanes of the H-1 Freeway as the H-1 Rehab Project goes into its final stretch. While it's the biggest current road project with night work, it's not the only one.

The H-1's eastbound lanes are shut down between Middle Street and the Ward Avenue Overpass from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. this week.

"We are happy with the H-1 Rehab Project, now that it is on schedule for completion in July, and so once that one is completed, at least that will be a big relief for everyone," said DOT spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter.

While crews are working to fix the pavement and make other major improvements on the freeway, there are other nighttime road projects, especially in the eastbound direction. Those projects require coordination between the state DOT and the city, which is working on its rail project.

"The best example of that is our work along Nimitz Highway at night," said Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. "During the spring break week, the state Department of Transportation asked us to hold of work for a couple of nights just to make sure traffic was flowing on Nimitz while they closed the freeway down.

That work involved closing one lane of Nimitz eastbound between Kukahi Street and Bethel Street for soil evaluation. But it was canceled Wednesday night once again, because of the H-1 lane closures.

Another DOT project on Ala Moana Boulevard has closed lanes at night between Queen and Kamakee Streets, where crews are working to put utility line underground.

"In that one section they did run into the water table, so they had to do micro-tunneling and so it's taking longer than they had anticipated," said Sluyter.

Nighttime lane closures were also scheduled this week eastbound on the H-1 from the Radford Drive overpass to the Airport off ramp for overhead sign work. There's also a small overnight lane closure between the H-1/H-2 merge and the Waiawa Road overpass for work related to the rail project.

"We do realize that this is a lot of projects going on," said Sluyter. "But as people know, there is a backlog of work that needs to be one, so that's kinda what's happening now. It's catching up on all that work."